FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

ferretman:FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

More people earning more money will allow them to spend more in their local economies supporting other businesses that will then earn more profits and be able to expand hiring more employees and creating more jobs.

If the cost of a Big Mac were to increase by 68 cents, the corporate jets would get more gold inlay and the yachts would grow another foot longer. The corporation knows that people who work in fast food do it because they have to, so why would they pay higher wages?

ferretman:FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

If the suppliers etc are union shops and their members are only making minimum wage, those are officially the worst unions ever.

gilgigamesh:ferretman: FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

If the suppliers etc are union shops and their members are only making minimum wage, those are officially the worst unions ever.

But if the people working in the factories are making the same $15/hr minimum wage that the McJobbers are, they're gonna revolt.

ArkAngel:gilgigamesh: ferretman: FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

If the suppliers etc are union shops and their members are only making minimum wage, those are officially the worst unions ever.

But if the people working in the factories are making the same $15/hr minimum wage that the McJobbers are, they're gonna revolt.

ferretman:FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

Yeah, your right to get cheap-ass food far outweighs those people's right to earn enough to lead a decent life.

FFS people, pay for what you get. People are trying to make a living, just like you.

Just raise minimum wage to $12. Since McD employees already earn more than minimum, according TFA, it will be a bonus for everyone. Problem solved. We'll do ourselves a favor by not having to hear about this crap every year or so....

ferretman:FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

Thank God you are nowhere near reality.

Setting the minimum wage close to the true living minimum wage floats all boats, and the economy grows much more quickly.

Marcus Aurelius:ferretman: FTA: "In other words, for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its <a data-cke-saved-href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/04/news/companies/mc donalds_jobs/index.ht m" target="_hplink">more than 500,000 U.S. employees."

Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

Thank God you are nowhere near reality.

Setting the minimum wage close to the true living minimum wage floats all boats, and the economy grows much more quickly.

While companies like Walmart and McDonald's probably could pay $15 and hour by only raising prices on each item they sell a few cents, most smaller businesses would go bankrupt if they had to pay that much. Not only that, but other people start demanding pay raises as well. People with skills and experience who were making $15-20 an hour before minimum wage went up are going to demand an appropriate raise as well, and by all rights they deserve it.

After a year or two, when all the wage and price increases have finally settled down, the economy will be right back to where it was before, and $15 an hour minimum wage wont buy a damn thing more than it did at $7.25.

ReapTheChaos:After a year or two, when all the wage and price increases have finally settled down, the economy will be right back to where it was before, and $15 an hour minimum wage wont buy a damn thing more than it did at $7.25.

If that was the case then it would be impossible for purchasing power to ever increase. Only thing is between 1947 and 1980 real purchasing power doubled.

While companies like Walmart and McDonald's probably could pay $15 and hour by only raising prices on each item they sell a few cents, most smaller businesses would go bankrupt if they had to pay that much. Not only that, but other people start demanding pay raises as well. People with skills and experience who were making $15-20 an hour before minimum wage went up are going to demand an appropriate raise as well, and by all rights they deserve it.

After a year or two, when all the wage and price increases have finally settled down, the economy will be right back to where it was before, and $15 an hour minimum wage wont buy a damn thing more than it did at $7.25.

While that is one possibility, I don't think that's what would happen long term. There would likely be an initial price increase across the board, but certain companies would also see it as an opportunity to build market share by lowering revenues and profit margins to undercut the competition. They'd just take slightly lower corporate profits in order to steal the customer base away from competitors, which would prompt the competitors to do the same. Eventually competition would drive prices back down.

While companies like Walmart and McDonald's probably could pay $15 and hour by only raising prices on each item they sell a few cents, most smaller businesses would go bankrupt if they had to pay that much. Not only that, but other people start demanding pay raises as well. People with skills and experience who were making $15-20 an hour before minimum wage went up are going to demand an appropriate raise as well, and by all rights they deserve it.

After a year or two, when all the wage and price increases have finally settled down, the economy will be right back to where it was before, and $15 an hour minimum wage wont buy a damn thing more than it did at $7.25.

While that is one possibility, I don't think that's what would happen long term. There would likely be an initial price increase across the board, but certain companies would also see it as an opportunity to build market share by lowering revenues and profit margins to undercut the competition. They'd just take slightly lower corporate profits in order to steal the customer base away from competitors, which would prompt the competitors to do the same. Eventually competition would drive prices back down.

incremental increases in the minimum wage instead of one sudden doubling would help to mitigate the inflation problem while still help increase wages across the board and increase the participation of low income workers in the economy(drive economic activity)

Actually, another way to look at it would be to say that if you cut the average McDonald's worker's salary in half, to maybe $4.00 an hour or something like that, McDonald's would be able to CUT 68 cents from the price of their Big Macs. That would help make food much more affordable to other people, which might help reduce the almost universal dependency on Food Stamps that Obama has created.

Going even further, if McDonald's cut salaries to but cut the price of Big Macs by LESS than 68 cents, what would happen is that McDonald's would, overall, become more profitable. This, in turn, would give the corporation more money that would eventually find its way back to the very same workers who are supposedly now receiving "lower wages." It's not actually that their wages are getting lower, it's that they're getting less DIRECT money and more INDIRECT money. But it all works out the same in the end -- and, I'm not afraid to say, probably to the benefit of the employee. It's a well known fact that charitable donations are at their lowest ever now, after years of recession. But if profits were to start going up again? Why, it would be like Christmas year-round.

The reality is that life is not an Oprah show. McDonald's can't just walk into their restaurants tomorrow and point at everybody and say, "You get a raise, you get a raise, EVERYBODY GETS A RAISE." They'd love to, but they can't. Because, see, if they do that, everybody gets a raise, sure...but then the price of food goes up, which means even more people go on food stamps, which means profits drop, which means charitable donations drop as well -- and, in the end, everybody gets poorer. Everybody.

Have you ever watched lobsters, subby? A tank of them. Every now and then, one lobster will try to escape. He'll swim up to the top and be just about to get out of the tank. And do you know what those other lobsters will do? I'll tell you. They'll grab him and drag him back down. Right back down there with him.

Pray 4 Mojo:I work with minimum wage employees all the time... there's a reason they are minimum wage employees.

Cool story bro! My roommate's neighbor's cousin once saw some woman buy cigarettes and a bunch of junk food with food stamps and drive away in an Escalade therefore all forms of Welfare(or "entitlements") are teh evil.

ferretman:Yes...there are no other costs besides employee pay and benefits. What the student hasn't taken into account, if minimum wage was doubled, the rising costs associated with the suppliers, the ones who manufacture the beef patties, chicken nuggets, soda syrup, shake mix, french fries, fish sandwiches, packaging suppliers, etc. These are all manufactured by other companies under contract to, in this case, McDonalds and are typically union-shops (at least on the east coast). If everyone's wages increase the product cost will increase and there will be less jobs.

Voiceofreason01:Pray 4 Mojo:/If you work at Mcdonalds in an attempt to support anyone other than yourself, at some point, you failed at life.

because everybody can be a billionaire CEO of a Fortune 500 company if they just work hard enough!

/that anybody can become a huge success regardless of their circumstances is probably the biggest lie of the "American Dream"

First... you said that.

Then... you said this:

Voiceofreason01:Pray 4 Mojo:I work with minimum wage employees all the time... there's a reason they are minimum wage employees.

Cool story bro! My roommate's neighbor's cousin once saw some woman buy cigarettes and a bunch of junk food with food stamps and drive away in an Escalade therefore all forms of Welfare(or "entitlements") are teh evil.

I work with minimum wage employees all the time... there's a reason they are minimum wage employees.

I work with managers and vice presidents all the time, as well as with doctors and accountants. some are good at their jobs, some clearly have no business being where they are, and most just wanna get the job done and go home for a beer and maybe mow the lawn before the sun goes down. which has about as much relevance as your statement here - its been my experience that if you underpay someone you get what you pay for. if there isn't any incentive for an employee to actually participate, then yeah - you'll probably get crappy employees. welcome to human nature 101. offer someone a real wage increase for doing a good job and hey, i'll bet you get good employees. not just an extra .60 cents either, I mean $25 bucks an hour if they show up and work for it.

Jesus, guys, it's a thought experiment. You don't have to actually double their salaries - especially the CEO and stuff. The point is that you could easily increase their wages, pay for it with a small increase in prices, and have everyone be a bit better off.